Land of Dreams
by yanocchi
Summary: Kino no Tabi Kino's Journey fic. Two travelers, two journeys, two dreams, one destination. Some Kino x Shizu in later chapters. Rated to be safe. SUSPENDED
1. Prologue

**LAND OF DREAMS:** A Kino no Tabi fanfic by yanocchi

**Standard disclaimers apply**

* * *

"Kino. Ki-no-."

Kino woke slowly, rising through sleep like a slowly surfacing diver. Little by little the world around her came into focus through her various senses. The dry leaves beneath her rustled and crunched, releasing their musty scent. As she pushed herself up with one arm she blinked her eyes, meeting the gaze of a nondescript brown bird that perched on Hermes' handlebars.

"Good morning," Kino wryly to her companion.

"It's not morning," Hermes retorted in his usual tone: half playful and half petulant. "It's the middle of the afternoon."

"It's just a greeting," Kino replied, stretching luxuriously. The bird, startled, flew off in a rush of wings. "Shall we move on?"

"Yes, please," Hermes said eagerly. "I don't like running through woods like this. It's hard on my shocks."

Kino paused, her battered coat and hat held close against her chest. It felt like there was something in the air, or maybe on the air, calling to her. An early autumn breeze pushed at the trees around her and tugged at the hem of her coat. What was it? Where was it coming from? A gust sent a yellow leaf spinning between the trees until it landed in Kino's hair. She crossed her eyes momentarily and brushed it away. The spell was broken, and the feeling had passed. Donning her coat, hat and goggles, Kino turned to her partner.

"Okay, let's go," she said, throwing her leg over Hermes' tank with practiced grace. "I'll find a road, just for you."

"Yay!" Hermes replied. Kino started his engine, then carefully began to guide him through the woods.

Though autumn was in the air, most of the trees still wore all their leaves. The sun filtered through to the forest floor slowly. Kino and Hermes seemed to run through a timeless world. The light all around them was thick and golden like honey.

"I had a dream," Kino said.

"Oh?"

"Yes."

"What was it about?"

Kino hesitated, unsure of how to describe it. She twisted the handlebars to the right to avoid a rock, then straightened them again. "I dreamed I was home."

"Home?" Hermes repeated, his tone confused. "Home WHERE? The place where we first met? At Master's?"

Kino shook her head. "That's the odd thing. I don't know where it was. It just felt like home."

"Hmmm," Hermes said pensively. "What did it look like?"

Kino tipped her head to one side in thought, careful to keep one eye forward. "Well, it looked like a lot of different places all at once."

"All at once? How is that possible?" Hermes replied almost accusingly.

"I don't know," Kino told him. "It just did. For example there were soft blankets, and lots of flowers, and the sky was just the right shade of blue. And the food was really good," she added after a moment.

"You think everywhere with good food is good," Hermes laughed.

"Maybe," Kino agreed with a grin. She fell silent then, lost in her thoughts. The young traveler tried to recall what "home" had looked like. She felt like she was chasing scraps of paper that were flying about on a tricky wind. All she could remember were impressions; the sheets were soft, a bowl of warm stew between her hands, a cool breeze against her arms, sunlight illuminating somebody's face, rain on her cheeks, the smell of wet moss on her bare feet... The fact that these images were sometimes contradictory didn't bother Kino much. Lost in the dream, she had felt like years and years had passed.

She suddenly wondered if motorrads dreamt. Sometimes her partner was so human she forgot that he was really a machine. It occurred to her briefly that she could ask Hermes what his dreams were like, but she decided to abstain. It might make her friend uncomfortable, and in truth she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

"Ah! Look! The road!"

Roused once again from her thoughts by her incorrigible partner, Kino turned towards the sunny brown stripe glimpsed through the trees.

* * *

Shizu came awake suddenly and completely. What had alerted his highly-trained senses he couldn't say, but he was awake now. He paused for a moment, then sat up and looked around. His dune buggy was parked a few meters away, his gear and supplies just as he had left them when he had dropped off to sleep for a brief nap. His companion lay next to him, paws splayed in blissful sleep. Shizu's mouth quirked at his friend's lack of composure. Normally so proud, Riku looked like a puppy while he slept.

"Riku, time to go," Shizu said as he rose, nudging the dog awake.

"Already?" Riku sighed, shaking stray bits of grass from his thick fur.

Shizu glanced at the sky. "It's been more than an hour. Besides, you can sleep while we drive." The young man had a watch, one he was actually quite fond of, but the warm lassitude of a midafternoon doze dulled the impulse to check the timepiece.

"No, I can't," Riku told his master in a matter of face tone. "Keeping you company while you drive is why I wake up every morning."

"Ah, of course," Shizu replied with a hint of a smile. Riku trotted ahead of his master, his tightly curled tail bouncing jauntily. Shizu retrieved his sword from where he had left it on the grass. He lingered in the bent over position long enough to touch his toes, then straightened and arched his back, relishing the feel of tight muscles stretching.

"I had an interesting dream," Shizu mentioned as he settled himself behind the wheel of his buggy. Riku leapt into the seat beside him, leaping over the framework of the machine rather than make Shizu bother with the door.

"Oh?" the dog replied with a tip of his head.

"I dreamed I was home," Shizu said, starting the engine. The rough, rude noise of the buggy muffled his words, but Riku's sharp ears heard nonetheless. "Except it wasn't the home I remembered." He paused while he guided the buggy back onto the road, then resumed his story. "I didn't recognize anything about the place, but it seemed so familiar."

"It sounds complicated," Riku observed, lifting his nose to the wind. "Take my advice, Shizu-sama, avoid those complicated dreams."

"Oh, and what should I be dreaming about?"

Riku gave his master a canine grin. "Dogs," he replied shortly. It took Shizu a moment to understand what his friend meant and the reason for that grin. When he did understand, he smiled and shook his head.

"Most people say those are the complicated dreams," he remarked.

"Yes, well, what do they know."

* * *

**ATOGAKI**: My first Kino fic and my first non-Avatar fic in... um... (checks) Whatever, it's been a long time. I've only seen the anime, so you purists who have been lucky enough to see the movie(s) and read the novels, don't hurt me! I originally planned to make one big fic out of this, but decided that it needed a bit of a set up prologue sort of thing.

I'm still getting a feel for the characters, so please forgive my early fumbles.

I think this will be more of a challenge for me than writing other fics, because Kino's is a much deeper series. There will be action and romance and all that good stuff, but there will also be heavy doses of introspection and philosophy. I (the author) will make an appearance or two, I think, but only as a minor character so that I can play with some ideas and themes that I particularly like in the series. This will not be like other fics, so adjust your critiques accordingly.


	2. Chapter 1: Kino's Side

**Land of Dreams**: a Kino no Tabi fanfic by yanocchi

**Standard disclaimers apply.**

* * *

They had stopped for lunch late in the day, just as the autumn sun was at its hottest. There hadn't been any rain, and the narrow road was dusty. More out of a desire to breath some fresh air than consideration for other travelers, Kino had pulled Hermes off the road onto the green sloping side of a field. Far in the distance the little ant-like figures of farmers bobbed over the crop, the wide brims of their hats shielding them from the sun. 

"Do you remember the country we visited a few weeks back?" Kino asked abruptly. She reached into her day pack and withdrew a thick slice of bread. Eagerly, she took a bite while Hermes pondered the question. Raisins and nuts had been baked into the loaf. Kino tapped her booted feet together in wordless delight.

"Ummm, no."

Kino plucked a leaf off the piece of bread she had been nibbling at and flicked it away. "The one where everybody was always running?" she prompted.

"Oh, that one," Hermes replied. "The Land of Impotent People."

Kino paused, deciphering her motorrad's thoughts. "Important People," she corrected. "They all seemed very important, but they seemed angry too."

"Maybe being important makes you angry," Hermes suggested.

"Hmm, maybe." Kino bent over her slice of bread, still fresh from the country they had just left. A single ant trundled across the vast expanse, a crumb half again as large as itself clutched proudly in its jaws. "Important people are in charge of other people," Kino said, echoing the words she had been told. "I suppose if you mess up when you're important a lot of people suffer."

"Ugh, I'd hate to be important," Hermes announced.

"You're important to me," Kino told him. "Without you it would take me forever to reach the next country."

"That sounds selfish," Hermes laughed.

"Maybe a little. But I'm important to you, too, aren't I? Somebody told me," Kino went on, "that a person gives a motorrad balance, and a motorrad gives a person speed. But you can stand on your own." Kino tapped one foot against Hermes' kickstand. "And I could travel without you."

"But it's better to do it our way," Hermes finished for her.

Kino grinned. "Yes, I like this way much better." She tore off a piece of bread and set it on the ground. The ant, who had been a passenger on that piece, disembarked and vanished between the blades of grass. Kino watched the ant go. Silence dropped over the small embankment.

'I think I'd hate to be important, too,' Kino mused silently, chewing her lunch slowly. 'It's okay being important to Hermes. I know that I won't let him down, and I know he won't let me down. It's not so bad being a little important, I guess. I'm glad I don't have to be important to anybody else,' she thought as she finished. She dusted a few crumbs from her hands, took a sip of metallic-tasting water from her canteen, and prepared to hit the road again.

"Hermes, time to go," she said, glancing over at her friend. He didn't respond, so she called him again. When she still received no reply, she gave up. Obviously the motorrad had fallen asleep once again.

"Lazy bones," Kino accused teasingly. "Sleeping on the job."

She tucked her hands behind her head and flopped back on the grass. A few clouds scudded across the sky. They were small but their bellies were dark, promising rain.

"It's not bad, being unimportant," she said to herself. The cool breeze that pushed the clouds lulled her to sleep.

When she dreamt, it was like she was a child again. Everything seemed bigger, though she was still the same height. Her hair was short and she wore her own comfortable trousers and blouse, but still she felt like a child. She was running through the streets of a town, looking for something. Something important. Someone was chasing her, laughing. It wasn't a pleasant sound.

She had reached the last corner, the last alley. There would be nowhere else to look. If the important thing she sought wasn't here she would never find it. Kino turned the corner so fast her feet nearly slid out from under her. For a moment her eyes adjusted to the dimness of the alley. Then she fell to her knees, her willpower gone.

As was the way with dreams, it seemed as though many contradictory things were true all at once. There was nothing in the alley. The rusted decaying remains of a motorrad were in the alley. A broken door, discarded and not attached to anything but its own shadow, lay in the alley. There was nothing in the alley. Kino knelt there, staring at the dirty alley, wishing that what she needed to be there would suddenly appear. Behind her the laughing voices grew to a cacophonous pitch. They drowned out all other noise, filling her ears and mind until nothing but the raucous laughter existed.

Then, suddenly, it was gone. A warm presence was at her back. Strong arms folded around her protectively. A rich voice murmured something in her ear... Her name spoken in a tone that warmed her.

Kino woke suddenly, startled from her doze by fat drops of rain.

"Oh, no," she muttered, scrambling to her feet. Quickly, she pulled on her jacket, then her large coat and hat. "Hermes, this time we're really leaving," she said briskly, patting the motorrad's seat. He came awake with a start.

"Kino, it's raining!" he observed, distressed.

"I know," she replied, settling her goggles in place. "Let's try to make it somewhere we can stay dry for the night."

"I'm going to get all muddy," Hermes moaned.

"So will I. Don't worry, I'll clean you off."

"Oh good."

Kino guided Hermes back onto the road. The dust was now spotted with dark circles where the raindrops had landed. The road slowly darkened as the soft sound of water falling into dust changed into the more staccato noise of rain on wet earth. As they picked up speed, Kino glanced at the farmers who stood in the fields. Some had lifted their hands, welcoming in the rain.

"It wouldn't be bad, being important," Kino said softly.

"Did you say something?" Hermes asked.

"Nothing important," Kino replied with a faint smile.

* * *

**ATOGAKI:** I sat on this chapter for weeks and weeks, trying to decide if I should continue from here, or change something, or add something, or... Finally, at the urging of several people, I decided to just post it and move on. 

Despite how short this chapter is (I had wanted to make it about twice as long) I really like how it turned out. I love Hermes' little mix ups with words, but I wasn't really sure how to do it properly. Also, it's hard to write Kino realistically, since we hardly ever see into her personality. I hope she turns out okay...

Something important to know about this fic: Each chapter will have two sides; Kino's Side and Shizu's Side. Shizu's Side of chapter one is coming in short order. Not all the of sides will get their own entry, but this time, because I'm dithering over Shizu's side and Kino's side is already good to go, they're gonna be separate.

On a (not entirely unrelated) sidenote, I finally got a job after 4 months of searching! Yay me! I'm now a hostess at a Japanese restaurant, and I must say that knowing where my next meal will be coming from has GREATLY improved my mood. A lot of people are on spring break now, so have a good time and eat lots of Japanese food! (And tip your hostess!)

All of you should thank JagaGirl for asking me to update, since it was her comment that finally inspired me to post.


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